Video clip shows Naxals training to gun down choppers

Raipur: A rare video footage of Maoists purportedly showing the rebels conducting a 'commando-style' training to gun down helicopters, used to ferry security personnel and VIPs in Chhattisgarh's worst insurgency-hit Bastar region, has been recovered by police.

The video of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) at a training camp apparently in forests of Sukma - south Bastar adjoining Andhra Pradesh and Odisha - shows a group of 15-20 guerrilla cadres doing a practice to bring down a chopper by using its 'dummy' with LMGs (light machine guns) and small weapons.

"Documents detailing Naxals' nefarious strategies to target choppers have been seized a number of the times from various places of Bastar, but for the first time it has come to our knowledge that they have made its clippings. Now it's clear that the Naxals are conducting such trainings," state Additional Director General of Police (anti-Naxal operations) R K Vij said.

"Security will be beefed up around helipads in the dense forests and all necessary precautionary measures will be taken to ensure that Maoists do not get a chance to target choppers," Vij said.

The video clip, believed to be shot recently, shows a dummy of a flying machine, prepared with raw wood, plastic sheets and branches of trees, suspended on a rope tied to trees from two sides.

In the footage, few cadres are seen swinging off the 'dummy' from one side to another in a descending pattern, quite like a helicopter lands from some specific height at the helipad, while the armed cadres positioned on the ground are seen firing at its bottom.

The video also shows Maoists training in different techniques to engage helicopters with small weapons along with some sophisticated weapons positioned at strategic points.

Machine guns mounted on tripods made of tree branches were also being used in the training, as per the footage.